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Let's not consider how long it's been since last I got around to posting one of these. Let's focus on the fact that I manage to do it on a wednesday for once.
What I've recently finished reading
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen: Den skinbarlige sandhed om Lumikkos litterære selskab
I really liked the concept, but found the secrets revealed and the entire game played by the authors somewhat boring. It never quite dealt with the supernatural mysteries hinted at. Oh, and this was one of the worst perpetrators of the entire "she breasted boobily" I've come across in a while.
Carol K. Carr: India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy
Carol K. Carr: India Black in the City of Light
Carol K. Carr: India Black and the Gentleman Thief
I'm sad to say India Black never managed to be as good as in her first novel. It's as if the writer didn't actually want to write stories starring a Victorian madam turned spy.
Platon: Samlede værker bind 5.
Finally. Done and done. Question - why do everybody talk about the State as the dystopia? The Laws are the recipe for how you build a repressive state, with citizens not allowed to leave, all work done by either slaves or migrant workers (who'll get kicked out just as they reach retirement age), propaganda machines built specifically to, for instance, create homophobia intended to encourage everybody finding themselves nice, settled heterosexual marriages, etc. etc. etc. The State has nothing on this.
Martin Davidsen: Kongens brev
It's a 3 Musketeers style novel set against a backdrop of 1660 Denmark, where the king is maneuvering to become absolute monarch - but most of the action involves the main character trying to figure out who has set him up for murder and rape charges. And it stars Svend Gønge as a minor character and really quite different from how I remember him from the old movie. I really should sit down and read those books, actually.
Jean-David Morvan: Zaya
Ruthanna Emrys: Winter Tide
I think this was one of my favourite books this year. Aphra Marsh is one of the two survivors of the government raid and following internment of the people of Innsmouth. She was a child during the raid and she and her brother got out along with the Japanese family that pretty much adopted them. Now it's the 50s, McCarthyism is starting and a government agent who might be a friend wants her help in trying to figure out if the Russians have learned body swapping magic. Which means a lot of research at Miskatonic, and a family visit to Aphra's Deep One relatives. And there's a random Yith at Miskatonic. It's not a deep book, but it's straight forward and well-written counter-Lovecraft and I think I might nominate it for Yuletide. Hopefully I'll like the sequel as well.
Amy Reeder: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: Cosmic Cooties
Brian Michael Bendis: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man volume 2.
Mike Mignola: Abe Sapien: The devil does not jest and other stories
Mike Mignola: B.P.R.D. - Hell on Earth: New World
Lee Falk: Mandrake: Kattekvinden
Norman Worker: Det første Fantoms krønike
This holds up reasonably well.
Lao She: Cat Country: a satirical novel of China in the 1930s
Wrapped in a sf narrative about a visit to Mars and a stay in a land of sentient, bipedal cats is a really vicious satire about China, written by a Chinese man who had lived some years in Europe. He - really didn't like the way his country was going.
Malene Sølvsten: Ravnenes hvisken 2.
This didn't really work for me. Maybe I've just gotten tired of "person from Earth having to go utterly unprepared to a fantasy universe" narratives.
Brian K. Vaughan: Saga vol. 8.
Greg Rucka: Lazarus vol. 1.
Chris Ewan: The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam
I like the concept - thief by night, author writing murder mysteries starring a thief by day - but it doesn't quite do it justice. Still, I'm up for the sequel.
52 vol. 1.
It's nice to see the comic book version of Zari.
Lee Falk: Fantomet super-album
This doesn't hold up well at all.
Kieron Gillen: The Wicked + the Divine: Imperial Phase part 1.
Benjamin Legrand: Snowpiercer 2.: The Explorers
Kurt Busiek: Astro city: Ordinary Heroes
I adore that this collection revisits Marta and her life in the Shadow Hill neighbourhood. Her story was one of the ones that sold me on Astro City in that first paperback.
Xavier Dorison: Long John Silver: Guiana-Capac
Greg Rucka: Wonder Woman: The Truth
Nalo Hopkinson: Midnight Robber
This - the first half was fine. The worldbuilding is fine, the aliens are excellent. The narrative voice - never quite did it for me, but that's how it goes. But this book - it's one of the few books where I really would wish published books came with warnings same as fanfic, because it's one of the few books where I can honestly say that I would not have read it if I knew what was going to happen. Life's too short for some things.
Mark Waid: Empire
I like the idea of a story set in a world where the supervillains won. Sadly, I've yet to find any work that actually executes that concept well, and this is no different. The evil overlord is just - meh.
Malene Sølvsten: Verden styrter
Anders Lundt Hansen: Sølv, blod og kongemagt - bag om vikingemyten
Seanan McGuire: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
I would have liked this better if I hadn't read "Every Heart A Doorway" first. It's not that I don't like the story of Jack and Jill and the gothic fantasyworld they accidentally find their way into, it's that this book is basically just taking a story we were already told in the first book and putting more words on it without really adding anything.
André Gorz: Farvel til proletariatet
Tom King: The Sheriff of Babylon: Pow pow pow
Maurice Leblanc: Arséne Lupin kontra Herlock Sholmes
I liked this a lot less than the first Arséne Lupin book. It's just - the Sherlock Holmes parody felt downright mean most of the time.
Greg Rucka: Whiteout
Emmanuel Roudier: Kampen om ilden
James Stokoe: Godzilla: the half-century war
Harry Martinson: Aniara
Tim Seeley: Grayson: We All Die At Dawn
I'm still in this primarily for the Midnighter.
Peer Meter: Gift
And that was this year's "yay! I can actually make my way through something in German" experience. It's quite good, actually, though rather depressing, telling the story of a young Englishwoman arriving in the town of Bremen right as a woman is about to be executed for several murders by poison.
What I've recently watched
44. Le jeune Karl Marx
45. With Fire and Water
Aka the movie that stole all the movies' moustaches.
46. Downsizing
I was expecting a bit more milage out of the shrinking people angle, except a lot of the movie post-shrinking happens in specially built communities. It has some nice scenes, but not many, and the main character felt - weak. As if he has very few opinions of his own and is ever easily swayed by whichever thing comes along, be it downsizing or a stubborn political refugee.
47. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
48. Godzilla (2014)
That was quite possibly the most disappointing Godzilla movie I've ever come across. It barely had any Godzilla.
49. Charleston
I noticed Cinemateket had Romanian movies this month, so I decided to go see one. This is - the tale of a recent widower, who is mourning when his late wife's young lover shows up on his doorstep. It's - occasionally absurd and sad and funny. I liked it.
50. Die Wand
German sf movie, where a woman staying with friends in a mountain cabin in the Alps finds herself mysteriously cut off from the rest of the world (which might possibly have ended), trapped behind invisible walls in the company of just a loyal dog, a cow and a cat. It's a proper robinsonade, really, set in the mountains, but it's also very slowly and frankly, for a story mostly starring just one human, too talkative. It's got a frame story of the main character writing a journal during the winter months, and it gets a bit too "tell, don't show" on occasion.
What I'm reading now
Henrik Pontoppidan's Lykke-Per (I'm past the half-way point!), Ginn Hale Champion of the Scarlet Wolf book one, and Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor's It Devours!
Total number of books and comics read this year: 193
What I've recently finished reading
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen: Den skinbarlige sandhed om Lumikkos litterære selskab
I really liked the concept, but found the secrets revealed and the entire game played by the authors somewhat boring. It never quite dealt with the supernatural mysteries hinted at. Oh, and this was one of the worst perpetrators of the entire "she breasted boobily" I've come across in a while.
Carol K. Carr: India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy
Carol K. Carr: India Black in the City of Light
Carol K. Carr: India Black and the Gentleman Thief
I'm sad to say India Black never managed to be as good as in her first novel. It's as if the writer didn't actually want to write stories starring a Victorian madam turned spy.
Platon: Samlede værker bind 5.
Finally. Done and done. Question - why do everybody talk about the State as the dystopia? The Laws are the recipe for how you build a repressive state, with citizens not allowed to leave, all work done by either slaves or migrant workers (who'll get kicked out just as they reach retirement age), propaganda machines built specifically to, for instance, create homophobia intended to encourage everybody finding themselves nice, settled heterosexual marriages, etc. etc. etc. The State has nothing on this.
Martin Davidsen: Kongens brev
It's a 3 Musketeers style novel set against a backdrop of 1660 Denmark, where the king is maneuvering to become absolute monarch - but most of the action involves the main character trying to figure out who has set him up for murder and rape charges. And it stars Svend Gønge as a minor character and really quite different from how I remember him from the old movie. I really should sit down and read those books, actually.
Jean-David Morvan: Zaya
Ruthanna Emrys: Winter Tide
I think this was one of my favourite books this year. Aphra Marsh is one of the two survivors of the government raid and following internment of the people of Innsmouth. She was a child during the raid and she and her brother got out along with the Japanese family that pretty much adopted them. Now it's the 50s, McCarthyism is starting and a government agent who might be a friend wants her help in trying to figure out if the Russians have learned body swapping magic. Which means a lot of research at Miskatonic, and a family visit to Aphra's Deep One relatives. And there's a random Yith at Miskatonic. It's not a deep book, but it's straight forward and well-written counter-Lovecraft and I think I might nominate it for Yuletide. Hopefully I'll like the sequel as well.
Amy Reeder: Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur: Cosmic Cooties
Brian Michael Bendis: Ultimate Comics Spider-Man volume 2.
Mike Mignola: Abe Sapien: The devil does not jest and other stories
Mike Mignola: B.P.R.D. - Hell on Earth: New World
Lee Falk: Mandrake: Kattekvinden
Norman Worker: Det første Fantoms krønike
This holds up reasonably well.
Lao She: Cat Country: a satirical novel of China in the 1930s
Wrapped in a sf narrative about a visit to Mars and a stay in a land of sentient, bipedal cats is a really vicious satire about China, written by a Chinese man who had lived some years in Europe. He - really didn't like the way his country was going.
Malene Sølvsten: Ravnenes hvisken 2.
This didn't really work for me. Maybe I've just gotten tired of "person from Earth having to go utterly unprepared to a fantasy universe" narratives.
Brian K. Vaughan: Saga vol. 8.
Greg Rucka: Lazarus vol. 1.
Chris Ewan: The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam
I like the concept - thief by night, author writing murder mysteries starring a thief by day - but it doesn't quite do it justice. Still, I'm up for the sequel.
52 vol. 1.
It's nice to see the comic book version of Zari.
Lee Falk: Fantomet super-album
This doesn't hold up well at all.
Kieron Gillen: The Wicked + the Divine: Imperial Phase part 1.
Benjamin Legrand: Snowpiercer 2.: The Explorers
Kurt Busiek: Astro city: Ordinary Heroes
I adore that this collection revisits Marta and her life in the Shadow Hill neighbourhood. Her story was one of the ones that sold me on Astro City in that first paperback.
Xavier Dorison: Long John Silver: Guiana-Capac
Greg Rucka: Wonder Woman: The Truth
Nalo Hopkinson: Midnight Robber
This - the first half was fine. The worldbuilding is fine, the aliens are excellent. The narrative voice - never quite did it for me, but that's how it goes. But this book - it's one of the few books where I really would wish published books came with warnings same as fanfic, because it's one of the few books where I can honestly say that I would not have read it if I knew what was going to happen. Life's too short for some things.
Mark Waid: Empire
I like the idea of a story set in a world where the supervillains won. Sadly, I've yet to find any work that actually executes that concept well, and this is no different. The evil overlord is just - meh.
Malene Sølvsten: Verden styrter
Anders Lundt Hansen: Sølv, blod og kongemagt - bag om vikingemyten
Seanan McGuire: Down Among the Sticks and Bones
I would have liked this better if I hadn't read "Every Heart A Doorway" first. It's not that I don't like the story of Jack and Jill and the gothic fantasyworld they accidentally find their way into, it's that this book is basically just taking a story we were already told in the first book and putting more words on it without really adding anything.
André Gorz: Farvel til proletariatet
Tom King: The Sheriff of Babylon: Pow pow pow
Maurice Leblanc: Arséne Lupin kontra Herlock Sholmes
I liked this a lot less than the first Arséne Lupin book. It's just - the Sherlock Holmes parody felt downright mean most of the time.
Greg Rucka: Whiteout
Emmanuel Roudier: Kampen om ilden
James Stokoe: Godzilla: the half-century war
Harry Martinson: Aniara
Tim Seeley: Grayson: We All Die At Dawn
I'm still in this primarily for the Midnighter.
Peer Meter: Gift
And that was this year's "yay! I can actually make my way through something in German" experience. It's quite good, actually, though rather depressing, telling the story of a young Englishwoman arriving in the town of Bremen right as a woman is about to be executed for several murders by poison.
What I've recently watched
44. Le jeune Karl Marx
45. With Fire and Water
Aka the movie that stole all the movies' moustaches.
46. Downsizing
I was expecting a bit more milage out of the shrinking people angle, except a lot of the movie post-shrinking happens in specially built communities. It has some nice scenes, but not many, and the main character felt - weak. As if he has very few opinions of his own and is ever easily swayed by whichever thing comes along, be it downsizing or a stubborn political refugee.
47. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
48. Godzilla (2014)
That was quite possibly the most disappointing Godzilla movie I've ever come across. It barely had any Godzilla.
49. Charleston
I noticed Cinemateket had Romanian movies this month, so I decided to go see one. This is - the tale of a recent widower, who is mourning when his late wife's young lover shows up on his doorstep. It's - occasionally absurd and sad and funny. I liked it.
50. Die Wand
German sf movie, where a woman staying with friends in a mountain cabin in the Alps finds herself mysteriously cut off from the rest of the world (which might possibly have ended), trapped behind invisible walls in the company of just a loyal dog, a cow and a cat. It's a proper robinsonade, really, set in the mountains, but it's also very slowly and frankly, for a story mostly starring just one human, too talkative. It's got a frame story of the main character writing a journal during the winter months, and it gets a bit too "tell, don't show" on occasion.
What I'm reading now
Henrik Pontoppidan's Lykke-Per (I'm past the half-way point!), Ginn Hale Champion of the Scarlet Wolf book one, and Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor's It Devours!
Total number of books and comics read this year: 193
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Still, I am thinking of adding the book to my to-be-read pile.